All three sisters enrolled in Advanced Placement calculus, physics, Spanish and other courses. They scored college credits by acing numerous AP tests — Jessica and Janessa each took 11, Jennifer 10.

And all three swooned over that hunk of pure, chiseled abstraction: math.

Jessica: “I like math because I am stubborn. All mathematicians are stubborn.”

Janessa: “I like math because there’s always a solution.”

Jennifer; I like math because it’s like a puzzle.”

Jennifer will pursue this passion at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering, where she intends to major in computer science. At UCLA, her sisters will major in applied mathematics.

So, again, what inspires these triplets?

Jessica: “I wanted to be better than my siblings.”

Janessa: “Jessica learns things because she has this intrinsic need to know things. Then she teaches me — and I become better than her.”

Jessica: “Then we teach Jennifer.”

Jennifer: “Wasn’t the question what inspired us?”

Normal brainiacs

The sisters are funny, argumentative, affectionate and smart — visiting them is like walking into a think tank staffed by clones. But beneath all this brilliance you can glimpse three normal adolescent girls.

As freshmen, they formed a Harry Potter club, donning wizard robes for a train trip between San Diego and Los Angeles, imagining themselves aboard the Hogwarts Express.

As sophomores, they ran with Patrick Henry’s cross country team and the badminton team.

Janessa: “That’s the year we did sports.”

As juniors, they began tutoring fellow students.

Always, they pushed and supported each other.

Jessica: “I’m really bad at socializing because I really didn’t have to. I always have two friends with me.”

Next school year, though, the trio will no longer walk to class side by side by side. But if distance bends these bonds, it seems powerless to break them.

Jennifer: “I’m pretty determined. That’s something you have to develop as a triplet when you are competing against two other...”